


Spiral Buns

by Rubynye



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Food, Gen, The Shire, Year of Troubles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-12
Updated: 2010-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-06 05:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five springs and five batches of buns in Marigold Gamgee's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiral Buns

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/shire_kitchen/profile)[**shire_kitchen**](http://community.livejournal.com/shire_kitchen/) Recipe Fic Challenge.

Title: Spiral Buns  
Fandom: LOTR  
Rating: G/PG  
Genre: Gen with het mentioned.  
Summary: Five springs and five batches of buns in Marigold Gamgee's life  
Disclaimer: Middle-earth is the Professor's, and the denizens thereof.

"Strew on the fruit, just so." Mari dared not lift her gaze from her task, but she could hear the smile in her Mam's warm voice. "Well done, Marigold. Now roll it, easy, not too fast or they'll pop out. Use the broad knife to lift the dough." Tongue poking between her lips as she concentrated, Mari followed her mother's words. "Curl it up, there. Now's the fun bit." Mari's Mam reached over her shoulder and firmly pressed on the coil of dough till the raisins showed through, dark spots like giant freckles.

"But Mam!" Mari protested as the pretty spiral vanished into a disk. "I thought they're to be swirly buns?"

Her Mam laughed.cheerily. "So they shall be, when we ice them once they've baked."

****************

Mari's hopes of gaining Bag End's green door undiscovered were dashed by Rosie's cheery, "What have you there, Mari Gamgee?"

"Naught for your concern," Mari replied tartly, quickening her steps, but Rosie merely laughed and ran up. "Just a basket of baking---"

Rosie reached round Mari to lift the napkin's corner. "Spiced swirly buns! Oh, Mari, you've outdone yourself." She waggled her eyebrows much as Jolly ever did. "Surely Mr. Frodo'll be pleased."

"It just seemed--- Sam's at Tighfield and--- I thought---" Marigold babbled, blushing and flustered, as Rosie's grin grew wider and wider, till her tongue tangled on itself and she had to laugh and lean on Rosie. "I'm daft, ain't I?"

"You're good and kind," Rosie declared, squeezing Mari lightly, pushing her on up the path. "And Mr. Frodo will be glad of these with his tea, I'm sure of it. Mayhap even glad enough to read us a tale or three!"

****************

_Stop your quaking, Marigold._ she thought in her old Dad's sternest voice. But he was alone down in Hobbiton, and she before Daisy's kitchen door, as the great snaggle-toothed ruffian sniggered and sauntered out, his sack full of cheese and apples and all her new-baked buns. Mari couldn't stop shaking.

Daisy's smile was frozen, her trembling just as sore. When the door fell shut she leaped to bar it. "Oh, bless the twins for not stirring. Mari-lass, he's gone." Daisy slumped onto the hall-seat, rubbing her face. "Come sit. He's gone."

"But..." Mari felt if she moved her knees would give. "But he took---"

"I know what he took, my larder barer for it." Daisy held out her hand. "Sit before you drop."

"I--" Mari took a step. "Tom'll be by tonight." Another step. "i baked for him, the sugar's done, what'll I feed him now?"

"What'll you feed _me_," Daisy replied, smiling warmer all the same, "and Marroc when he's home?" She took Mari's hand gently. "Come, lass." Nodding dumbly, Mari obeyed. "Shh. You're still here to see your Tom, and that'll do. Shh."

Mari tried to nod, but shook into a sob, and Daisy laid Mari's head to her shoulder and let her weep.

****************

Mari smiled to hear Sam breathe in the dough's spicy scent, then laughed when he patted her shoulder. "May I, lass?"

"Who's having who to tea?" Even so, she yielded her place. Watching him gently flatten the dough, part it and round each piece, Mari didn't notice they sat with no sound but their old Dad's snoozing in the corner, till Sam turned halfway and eyed her. "What?"

"You're quiet." He rolled another bun. "I'd know your thought."

"I just... you look like the Shire." He fixed her with that listening look of his, and so, having spoken she must explain. "You were gone, and the year was hard. But now you're back, but changed, and yet the same. You're still Sam, gardening and rolling buns, just as this ain't our old hole, but it's snug and it's home, just as all around is different but it's good again."

Sam nodded, smiling, glancing down at his hands. "While I thought on how I missed all this so on my year away. How I see in you all I missed."

"Well, now." Mari set her fist on her hip. "I should expect it's _Rosie_ who's all you missed." And she laughed cheerily as Sam blushed apple-red.

****************

"Freddy, 'tis Rose-lass' turn." Mari patted her son's head as her niece carefully iced a spiral on the first bun. "Well done!" Rose ducked, blushing like her father, and iced the next.

"Why not just swish it on?" asked Bell, bouncing on her light little heels. "It'd be swifter, and sweeter too!"

Freddy drew breath to scold his sister, but Mari patted him again to hush him. "Well asked," she answered her daughter. "'Tis because, when made in springtide, the buns have meaning beyond sweetmeats; each bun is the good earth below us, each icing swirl the sky of clouds and sun above. In eating them we take all the world in ourselves, and set ourselves again within it."

Three pairs of round eyes regarded her. "Really?" whispered Freddy.

"Just so." Mari nodded. "As my Mam told to me, when I was littler than you." Then she glanced at Rose's hand, and chuckled. "_That_ bun, however, has all the icing Bell'd ever want."

"Then 'tis mine!" Bell cried, as Rose-lass blushed harder and Freddy laughed, and Mari laughed too.

 

****************

 

Hot Cross Buns

The buns originally symbolized the earth and the cross the sun, with the four quadrants representative of the four seasons.

The Proofing Sponge  
1/2 cup warm milk  
1 teaspoon sugar  
2 tablespoons or packets active dry yeast  
1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour

The Dough  
1/2 cup milk  
1/3 cup brown sugar  
2 eggs  
6 tbsp butter, at room temperature  
1 teaspoon salt  
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon  
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg  
1/2 teaspoon allspice  
2 1/2 to 3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour  
1 cup dried fruit (I use 1/2 cup raisins, and 2 tbsp each blueberries, chopped cherries, diced apricots, and diced angelica. For a more 'hobbity' version I'd probably use raisins, currants, candied citrus peel and maybe angelica)  
wash made from 1 egg beaten with 2 teaspoons milk

 

Starting the Sponge: Put the milk in a large mixing bowl and mix in the sugar, yeast and flour. Let this small sponge sit for 10 to 15 minutes until it is bubbly.

Making the Dough: Add the warm milk to the sponge, and 1 cup of flour. Beat in the eggs and stir in the butter, salt, sugar and spices. Stir in 1&amp;1/2 cups of the flour until the dough holds together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This will make a soft but kneadable dough.

Kneading: Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Flour your hands and the surface of the dough and knead 3 to 4 minutes. Give the dough a rest while you clean and grease the mixing bowl. Add only enough flour to keep it from sticking to you or the board. It will still be quite "slack" or soft.

Flatten the dough as much as possible; spread the fruit out on it and roll it up tightly. Knead it again, pressing any fruit that pops out back into the dough, for 2 or 3 minutes until it's smooth and satiny.

Rising: Place the kneaded dough in the mixing bowl, turning it so the top is greased. Cover and place it somewhere cozy and let it rise until it has doubled, or until you can leave a deep fingerprint in it, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Shaping &amp; Rising: Punch dough down, return it to your floured board and divide it in half. Keep cutting each half in half until you have 32 pieces. Grease two 9-inch square cake pans and place 16 pieces, which you have rolled into balls, in each. Cover and let rise for 45 minutes to an hour.

Baking: About 15 minutes before you want to bake the buns, preheat your oven to 3500F. Brush the surface of the buns with the egg wash. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until they're golden brown.

The Glaze

2 cups confectioners' sugar  
1/2 teaspoon vanilla and/or 1 teaspoon lemon juice  
1 to 2 tablespoons milk or whatever creates a "drizzleable" consistency

Making the Glaze: While the buns bake, make the glaze by whisking the sugar and vanilla and/or lemon juice. Gradually add the milk until you can drizzle the mixture in a thick line. Go slowly on the milk; a too-thin glaze will pretty much vanish.

After the buns have cooled, draw spirals with the glaze on the buns.

This recipe modified from the one in King Arthur Flour's Baking Sheet, Vol. III, No.4, March-April 1992.


End file.
